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Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Sweet Meteor of Death: Save us from Romney!!

Today 70 delegates are up for grabs in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses. Colorado is a lock for Romney--but Minnesota is nobody's game and Santorum polls ahead! Exciting. Romney has opened fire with three press releases in 24 hours aimed directly at the sweater vest! Here's the money quote:

“Rick Santorum is a nice guy, but he is simply not ready to be President,” Pawlenty said in a statement released by the Romney campaign.

Subtext: Santorum is Obama. Sorry: Obowama. What if Santorum wins Minnesota? Well, the first thing that happens is that Romney takes a hit. He's taken several. From his tin-ear problem to his foot-in-mouth issue he's looking pretty lack-luster everwhere but the win-count. Obama, for the first time in a long time, polls 2pts ahead of him in the national poll. So he's vulnerable.

Secondly, people are looking at the numbers (Nate Silver, of course: the most credible guy out there to be "looking at the numbers"--followed by Jay Cost!) and he finds that low turn-out correlates to Romney-wins! That's going in the opposite direction from what you want since, in the general, low turn-out correlates to an Obama win!

And was the turn out in Nevada low? Oh boy was it low: 33,000 vs. over 116,000 democratic turn-out in '08 (and, as the Daily Kos article linked to suggests, if you take out the Ron Paul voters it's even less). Quoted in the above article:

Buell blamed Saturday’s low turnout on the difficult caucus process and the sour experience voters had in 2008, when there were fewer caucus locations, long lines and a lack of volunteers.

He also blamed nice weather and the Super Bowl — people were skiing or stocking up on food for the big game.

And then noted the coda:

Low turnout is usually blamed on bad weather.

Apparently any weather whatsoever could be to blame for a bad turn-out. Good to know.

The Sweet Meteor Of Death (2012!)
But perhaps the most damning ding that I see before the caucus is this: influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson comes out with his endorsement. The Sweet Meteor of Death 2012. After all "Only the sweet meteor of death seems capable of stopping both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama." More seriously, he makes a compelling point:

The Republican Party is putting itself in the hands of the economy. With Mitt Romney as the nominee, we will be forced to hope for a deteriorating economy because, while I will vote for him and think he is vastly better than Barack Obama, the fact is he has made no case for himself against Barack Obama except that he can do a better job on the economy. And let’s be clear — no Republican should hope or appear to be hoping for a deteriorating economy.

The SMOD 2012 is a joke from the Ace of Spades blog--but the endorsement (or rather non-endorsement)--is not a joke. Erickson can't endorse anyone in the race so he's endorsing Sudden Impact. AllahPundit from HotAir chimes in: